Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Database
    • Database

    Database Race Is on to Scale Up

    By
    Timothy Dyck
    -
    June 25, 2001
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      In the database world, as in many other areas of IT, companies are searching for ways to do more with less. This challenge is being approached from different directions by the three top database vendors.

      Oracle Corp. is focusing on clustering and adding nontraditional database services such as file serving to its database to lower the cost of ownership. IBM is beefing up XML (Extensible Markup Language), warehousing and other integration technologies to make it easier to use DB2 to connect different databases (even non-IBM databases) as well as working on self-management features. Microsoft Corp. continues to have the simplest database to administer, which also includes strong data analysis tools.

      Clustering has become a key battleground in the database industry. “Clustering allowed us to really tackle the economy issue,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, speaking at the launch of Oracle9i earlier this month.

      Oracles OPS (Oracle Parallel Server), which was renamed Real Application Clusters in Oracle9i, automatically provides a fault-tolerant database design, but until this month, it had a fundamental technical flaw that kept it from scaling well. This flaw was that OPS used its shared disk system instead of a network link to communicate among nodes. With Oracle9i, all communication now happens over a network, although data is still accessed using a shared disk.

      In contrast, both IBM and Microsoft use a shared-nothing design, where a group of databases, each with its own disk and memory resources, exchanges information over fast network links, a process that is substantially faster than using a disk to communicate and can run well on clusters of 32 or more machines.

      However, IBMs and Microsofts designs dont automatically include fault tolerance, although they certainly both support it. They also arent supported by complex packages such as SAP AGs R/3 (another strength of Oracle9i clusters), although many applications, including those developed in-house, do work well on IBMs shared-nothing clusters. (Microsofts clusters are not yet ready for widespread use.)

      Providing more comprehensive and less expensive data analysis services will be a focus for database vendors in the next few years.

      Microsoft has been a leader in OLAP (online analytical processing) and data mining with its database, as well as top-quality data transformation and loading tools.

      DB2 also includes a built-in OLAP engine based on Hyperion Software Corp.s Hyperion Essbase and, new in Version 7.2, includes a data mining extension as well. (For eWeek Labs review of DB2 7.2, see Page 55).

      Oracle has sold a separate OLAP server for some time, and, new with Oracle9i, is selling OLAP and data mining extensions that integrate directly with Oracle9i.

      Oracle, IBM and Microsoft are all racing to add XML features to their databases to strangle the native XML databases market before it gains a lot of traction; Oracle9i, DB2 7.2 and Microsofts SQL Server 2000 all provide a variety of ways to import, store, search and export data in XML format, and all three are moving quickly to enable remote access to database services through the XML-based Simple Object Access Protocol.

      Avatar
      Timothy Dyck
      Timothy Dyck is a Senior Analyst with eWEEK Labs. He has been testing and reviewing application server, database and middleware products and technologies for eWEEK since 1996. Prior to joining eWEEK, he worked at the LAN and WAN network operations center for a large telecommunications firm, in operating systems and development tools technical marketing for a large software company and in the IT department at a government agency. He has an honors bachelors degree of mathematics in computer science from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and a masters of arts degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×